pay them fuitable Regards of Obedience or Submiffion, if they have not our Lord's Commiffion to Govern us? Whofoever pretends to act as a Magiftrate in any Temporal Kingdom, without the King's Commiffion, is reckoned an Ufurper, and Invader of the Royal Prerogative, and as fuch is Obnoxious to the Laws. Pray, fhall the Peace, the Order and the Establishment of Temporal Kingdoms make Regular Commiffions fo Neceffary; and shall not the Peace, the Order, the Eftablishment, the Unity, the Prefervation, All the weighty Interefts of our Lord's Kingdom here on Earth do it? If the ftanding of all other Societies requires that Subordinate Governours fhould have Authentick Commiffions from the Supreme, the Head, How much more muft the ftanding of the Church require it? Church Governours are God's RepreJentatives: They Preach in his Name: They make Covenants and append Seals to them in his Name: In his Name they Receive into and Thruft out of the Communion of his Church. In a word, in his Name they must do every thing, if they would do it Warrantably. But how can they do any thing in his Name? How can they Reprefent him any manner of way? How can they in any Senfe be called his Ambafadours, his Proxies, his Vicegerents, without his Commiffion? And now he gives no Commiffions immediately; How then can they have his Commiffion without receiving it from Thofe he has Enabled to give Commiffions to A in his Name? Now, as P

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I take it, to grant fuch Commiffions is to Ordain; and to receive them is to be Ordained. And whatsoever Proves the Neceffity of Ordination does likewife Conclude the as great Neceffity of an Uninterrupted Succeffion of Perfons Empowered to Ordain, Authorifed by our Lord to give Commiffions to Act in his Name: For if fuch a Succeffion is once Interrupted, How fhall it begin again? How fhall Commiffions be had? Who is Authoriz'd to give them? There is a Neceffity of having them, and they are not to be expected immediately from Heaven. Nay more, Youthall not have Travell'd far in this Road of Thinking and Reckoning on the great Interefts of the Church, and the Concerns of Souls, when you thall Clearly fee that Few things can be more neceffary than that all poffible Care be taken that Ordinations be perform'd Regularly and Canonically.

18. VI. Bishops, (you fay, p. 25. 1. 14.) were forbidden to Ordain without Prefbyters. Pray Sir, by what Canon, of what Council? The Third Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage, which you feem to hint at, imports no fuch Probibition. It runs thus. Whilft a Prefbyter is a Ordaining, when the Bishop is Confecrating bim and holding his Hand on his Head, let the Prefbyters who are prefent alfo hold their Hands on his Head over against the Bishop's hands, (i) Doth this Canon for

(i) Prefbyter cum bid Bishops to Ordain withOrdinatur, Epifcopo out Presbyters? Can any

eum benedicente, &

magum fuper capat fuch thing be fqueez'd

from

ejus tenente, etiam omnes Presbyteri qui præfentes funt manus fuas juxta mannm Eillius teneant. Concil. pifcopi, fuper Caput Carth. Can. 22.

Ut Epifcopus fine Concilio Clericorum fuorum Clericos non

Ordinet, ita ut civium affenfum & conniventiam & Teftimonium quærat. ibid can.

22.

from it? For the greater Solemnity of fuch an Action, Presbyters only, if they are Frefent, are allowed to lay on their Hands. This is all; and this is the First Canon we read of, that gave fuch an Allowance; and this is fo far from allowing Presbyters to Ordain without a Bifhop, that it doth not in the leaft import that while they laid on their Hands, they concurred in the Collation of Power. This is Evident from what paffed the Year immediately preceding (i. e. An. 297.) in another Council holden in that fame City; as we learn from Canon 59th, as Beveregius Numbers them. Aurelius Bishop of Carthage, and Firft Primate of Africa, pleaded, that having the Infpection of many Churches and Ordinations, 'twas Reafonable he should be allowed to choose out from amongft the Clergy of any 69. other Bishop, Perfons fit to be Ordain'd as he had Qccafion: The Synod readily con fented,

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Ex pænitentibus (quamvis fit bonus) Clericus non Ordine tur; fi per ignorantierit, deponatur a cle am Epifcopi fa&tum furo, quia fe Ordinationis tempore non prodidit fuiffe pœnitentem; fi autem fciverit talem, etiam ip ens Epifcopus Ordinafe ab Epifcopatus fui Ordinandi duntaxat Poteftate privetur. Iba

Can. 68.

Simili Sententiæ

fubjacebit Epifcopus fi fciensOrdinaverit Cle ricum eum qui Viduam aut Repudiacam uxorem habuit, aut fecundam. lbid. Can.

fented, only one Bifhop called Poftumetianus, objected: What if a Bifhop has only One Pref byter? Muft he be obliged to part with him? By Divine Vouchsafement, faid Aurelius, One Bishop can Ordain many Presbyters, but a Perfon fit to be a Bifhop is not eafly to be found; and therefore if any Bishop fhall be found having only One Presbyter, but that One Presbyter fit to be a Bifhop, 'tis Reafonable that he part with him, that he may be Ordained: If then (faid Pofumetianus) another Neighbouring Bishop bas many Clergy-Men, Ought not I to be fupplyed out of bis Store? Tes, faid Aurelius,as you have helped others, fo others ought to help you, &c. and fo the Matter ended. Nay that the Bifhop continued ftill to be the Ordainer, the Allowance granted to Prefbyters to lay on their Hands notwithstanding, is evident event from divers other Canons of that very fame IV Council of Carthage. Particularly the 22d Orders that a Bishop ordain not any Clergymen without the Advice of his Clergy, and the Affent, Allowance and Testimony of the People. Now. 'tis plain that as the Affent, Allowance and Teftimony of the People, fo the Advice of the Clergy was one thing, and the Authority to Ordain was another. Again, the 68th Čanon runs thus, Let no Penitent (no man who has done publick Penance) tho' otherwife a good Man, be ordained a Clergy-Man. If a Bishop fhall Ignorantly Ordain any fuch, let the Perfon fo Ordained be Depofed, because he acquainted not the Bishop with his having been a Penitent. But if the Bishop knowing him to have

been

been fuch, fhall Ordain him; Let bim be Deprived of the Power of Ordination. And by Canon 69th. The Bishop who Ordains one whom be knows to have Married a Widow, &c. is Subjected to the like Sentence. And by the Canons of the Great Councils of Ephefus and Chalcedon (as we have feen, Let. 3. §. 42, 43.) and many other Councils pofterior to the 4th of Carthage, 'tis evident, the Bifhop was always look'd on as the Chief, if not the Sole Ordainer. Nay, Blondel himfelf confeffes, that Prefbyters were allowed to Impofe hands with the Bishop, Not of Neceffity, but for the greater Solemnity of the Performance; And that they were allowed to do fo only in the Weftern, not in the Eaftern. Churches. (k)

(k) Apel. pro fent. Hieronymi. p. 165. & 345. 19. VII. TheChorepifcopi Ordained; and yet as you tell us, they were but Prefbyters, (p.25. 1. 23.)Briefly,Sir, Blondel in his Pfeudo Ifidorus has rejected the Fifth Epifle afcribed to Damafus (Dr. Forbes's main Foundation) as Spurious, and divers Learned Men have, particularly, Beveregius (Annot. in Concil. Ancyran. Can. 13,& Concil. Antioch Can. 10.) has produced very ftrong Reafons to prove that the Chorepifcopi (fome of them at leaft) were Bifhops properly fo called, tho' under divers Limitations and Reftrictions. For my part, I think 'tis enough to tell you, that if they were truly Bishops, they do not ferve your Caufe: If they were only Prefbyters, by all the Principles and Canons of the Catholick Church, they could not Ordain: If fome of them (as fome

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